Wilma
Mankiller Cherokee
No
words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of
self-pity. Quicksand stretched in all directions. I had met my match. Alcohol
was my master.
Trembling,
I stepped from the hospital a broken man. Fear sobered me for a bit. Then came
the insidious insanity of that first drink, and on Armistice Day 1934, I was
off again. Everybody became resigned to the certainty that I would have to be
shut up somewhere, or would stumble along to a miserable end. How dark it is
before the dawn! In reality that was the beginning of my last debauch. I was
soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of
existence. I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life
that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes.
Big
Book pg. 8
When
we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or
evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything
or else he is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?
Big
Book pg. 53
Great
Mystery make me strong that I may face my hardships.